Gloucestershire County Council is now inviting bids to be submitted for consideration, as part of the county’s submission to the recently announced Government’s UK Community Renewal Fund. This competitive funding opportunity is intended for projects that support key local growth projects, or projects that address local barriers to employment.
A focus of the projects supported by the Fund will be on piloting ideas ahead of the new UK Shared Prosperity Fund which replaces EU Structural Funds, and will be formally launched later in the year. The pilot projects funded through the UK Community Renewal Fund will be for 21/22 only, and monitoring and evaluation should be key consideration of any bid. For more information click here.
Projects must deliver activity that is line with the UK Community Renewal Fund Prospectus and align with at least one of these investment priorities:
- Investment in skills
- Investment for local business
- Investment in communities and place
- Supporting people into employment
Any bid may cover all UK Community Renewal Fund Priorities or a selection of them.
There are no financial allocations to these priorities.
The UK Government anticipates supporting a range of projects by theme and size, but applicants are encouraged to maximise impact and deliverability through larger projects (£500,000+) where this is possible.
As 90 per cent of funding available through the UK Community Renewal Fund is revenue funding and only available in 2021/22, projects should be predominantly, or exclusively revenue based. Projects that focus predominantly on the construction or major refurbishment of buildings, the purchase of land or the purchase of large pieces of equipment will not be supported.